How to Promote a Music Venue on Facebook

Music and entertainment brands are inherently emotional and social, so it makes sense that people would want to engage with these brands on the world’s most popular social media site — Facebook. In fact, you can leverage that social engagement to promote your music venue on Facebook in more ways than you can imagine. It just takes some creativity and persistence.

If you haven’t already done so, create a Facebook Page for your music venue. Once you’ve set up your page, promote your music venue on Facebook by following the creative tips listed below.

Use Facebook Apps

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There are a wide variety of Facebook apps to make your music venue’s Facebook Page more interactive. Some of these apps can even be used to turn your page into a direct marketing and sales tool. For example, the Venue Profile app from ReverbNation enables you to sell tickets to shows and events, provide location information, collect email addresses through a special signup form, create a calendar for upcoming shows and events, and stream performances. The app can be published on both your Facebook Page and your Facebook Places page.

Both the Livestream app, and the Ustream app enable you to stream live events on your Facebook Page. It’s a great way to create a buzz around your venue, increase visitors to your page, and perhaps even turn some of those fans into paying customers.

Create Interesting Facebook Content

Who wants to go to a music venue that has a boring Facebook Page? If the Facebook Page content is irrelevant or boring, the venue’s target audience might assume they’ll get the same experience when they actually visit the venue. If you want to encourage people to interact and to make the effort to go to your events, you need to create content on your Facebook Page that accurately represents the experience inside your venue. A key component of brand building is consistency, and that applies to the content on your Facebook Page, too.

Again, it’s time to get creative. Don’t just regurgitate your calendar on your Facebook Page updates. Instead, publish videos and images. Create playlists through YouTube and upload photo albums related to specific events and performers. Share drink recipes, and be entertaining. Don’t forget to highlight employees in your updates, videos, and images, so your audience gets to know them. This has the added benefit of deepening your fans’ emotional connection to your venue.

You can even invite performers to participate on your Facebook Page, which gives them more publicity and gives you more interesting content. Red Bull does something similar on its Facebook Page by streaming content from popular athletes.

Promote Your Venue on Facebook

Facebook is a social networking site, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to promote your music venue on Facebook using traditional marketing techniques. For example, you can create Facebook Ads to promote your venue’s upcoming performances and events.

Your Facebook Page updates can include marketing messages and promotional offers — just be sure to make these messages more useful and engaging than self-promotional. No one wants to follow a Facebook Page that reads like a ticker tape of advertising messages.

Facebook Places offers a great spot for promotions, discounts, and deals, but you can publish real-time promotions on your Facebook Page, too. During an event, a Facebook update could say, “The first 20 people who like this post get a free beer. Just click Like and show the bartender.” Not only does this type of promotion increase the number of people who like your Facebook Page, but it’s also perfect for the mobile audience. To increase the exposure of your promotion, you could also ask your Facebook Page fans to take pictures of themselves and friends. Provide an immediate discount to everyone who’s tagged in the pictures.

Contests provide another great promotional opportunity for your music venue. Ask customers to upload pictures of themselves wearing your venue’s branded merchandise and offer a prize for the funniest picture, or the picture that includes the most people wearing your T-shirts. The prize should be enticing enough to encourage people to participate and to drive the biggest buzz about the contest. Mention your contest (and the fans who’ve participated) frequently on your Facebook Page. If possible, create a corresponding “leader board” in your venue to create a sense of competition and excitement among your on-site customers.

Remember, there is no instant recipe for success on Facebook, so don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment. You never know what your customers will respond to until you try.

Susan Gunelius: Susan Gunelius is a 20-year marketing veteran and President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She has authored nine books about social media, content marketing, branding, copywriting, and blogging, and she is a marketing columnist for Forbes.com and Entrepreneur.com. Susan speaks about marketing, branding, and social media at events around the world and is often interviewed about marketing topics by television, online, print, and radio media organizations.